5 Mistakes Newbie Growers Often Make

If you think that knowing how to grow marijuana can guarantee you a nice place on the market, life is going to surprise you a lot.

Unfortunately, no one is waiting for a new rival on the market, whether you are going to sell seeds, clones, or ready-made products. You need to fight for your costumers, as well as for the place on the market while not breaking the local rules that vary from state to state.

For instance, Washington does not allow the same party to both cultivate and retail—these licenses should be owned by different companies, while in Colorado rules require vertical integration, where growers can sell their own product fighting for their place on the recreational market.

The more companies offer their cannabis products, the more competition there is. It is not enough anymore to provide a product with a new name. Growing marijuana should be beneficial, and that means that the companies try their best to improve their growing process and business strategy. And that is great; however, this is where lots of mistakes can be made. Here are some of the most typical mistakes made by cultivators.

1. Saving money on lighting system

LED grow lights can not only significantly decrease your electricity bills but also simulate natural sunlight and, therefore, improve the quality of your crop. However, high-intensity discharge (HID) lighting remains the most common among pot growers.

By investing in LED lights, you can provide optimal lighting for your indoor garden. LED grow lights have the necessary red and blue spectrums that imitate sunlight, they do not heat (so you can avoid burns on the leaves), and what is the most important, they provide the biggest amount of light among all the available systems. It means that you will need fewer LED bulbs than HID bulbs to get the same result from your garden. The less you pay for your electricity, the more flexible you can be with the price for your pot and the more income you can get. And that is the point of everything we do, is it not?

2. Using human labor instead of automatizing all processes

Hiring people for treating marijuana and trimming the buds may require less investment than buying an automated system, but it can eventually turn out badly for your income.

When you apply the salary of all your employees to the final price of the product, the cost of weed will probably be higher than the average on the local market.

Indeed, hand-picked and trimmed marijuana may look better, and the precious trichomes may be preserved better, but this can be important if your business is positioned as “super-organic” and “hand-trimmed.” But let us admit the truth: there are not so many consumers who would agree to pay significantly more for this. Most of the users go for the features and effects of weed, and they will not be able to tell the difference between “super-ecological” and “usual” cannabis.

That is why it is better to optimize the whole process from the very beginning so that you can offer a competitive price for the final product.

3. Hiring a bad manager

If you are going to hire a person who will help you with the growing process, do not ever go for growers who have never had experience with large companies. A person may know everything about growing marijuana in small quantities, but when it comes to commercial growing, the rules are different.

Large amounts of plants require knowledge about automated greenhouses, agricultural systems, commercial nutrients, insecticides, growing methods, not to mention managing employees and dealing with the financial part of the growing.

Often, people who have experience with cultivating different cultures or have never worked with weed but have skills in commercial growing are preferable than the so-called “cannabis master growers.”

If you are going to hire a person who will manage the whole growing process, choose wisely. This person is going to be responsible for the most important process in your farm, so do not make a mistake.

4. Forgetting to promote your product

If you want to sell your product, whether we are talking about the final buyer or a distributor, you need to know how to push it. There is no reason in growing weed if you do not know whom to offer it. That is why it is important to visit and take part in all possible pot shows.

Some shows are better, some events are a simple waste of time, but when you are a newbie on the market, you need to use every opportunity to promote your goods and find clients. At some horticulture trade shows, you can also find information on the new ways of improving your systems and optimizing your growing processes. So do not think of these events as an opportunity to spend a great time in the cannabis grower community; try to get all possible benefits from these meetings.

5. Combining farming and marketing

If you are going to do both the farming and the marketing of weed, you really need to understand how challenging it is. It is possible, and you probably already know the names of some successful entrepreneurs; however, success does not come easy.

Most of the new pot entrepreneurs have had experience neither with the commercial growing of marijuana nor with distributing such amounts of weed. These two functions require two different sets of skills, and if you want to manage them both, expect to have twice as many headaches and stressful situations as you ever imagined.

Just like a cow farmer does not slaughter their cattle, and tomato growers do not bring the boxes with tomatoes directly to the supermarkets, you should expect marijuana growers to just grow their crop, and the distributing part should be done by the companies that are specialized in it.